Monday, February 22, 2016

Review: Through the Veil

Elizabeth Tanner is no Tinkerbell, and her life is no fairy tale. Broke and drowning in student loans, the one thing she wants more than anything is a scholarship from the Trinity Foundation. But after the ancient Irish text she's studying turns out to be more than just a book, she becomes their prisoner instead. And when Trinity reveals Elizabeth is half-Fae, she finds herself at the center of a plot to save the magical races of Ireland from a brutal civil war.

As Commander of Trinity's elite warriors, Finn O'Connell isn't used to having his authority challenged. He doesn't know whether to punish or protect the infuriating young woman in his custody. When he discovers the Dark Fae want to use Elizabeth's abilities to control the source of all power in the universe, he'll risk everything to help her.At the mercy of Trinity and enslaved to the Dark Fae, Elizabeth finds herself alone on the wrong side of an Irish myth thousands of years in the making. Refusing to be a pawn in their game, Elizabeth has to fight her way back to the man she loves, but to do so, she must wage her own war against the magic that binds her.

Hello everyone! Today is the release date for Through the Veil by Colleen Halverson so be sure to check it out on Amazon by clicking the cover if you want to pick it up and give it a shot!!

It has been a while since I've read a straight up paranormal romance. I remember being in middle school and those books would be the only once that I would read, but a lot has changed since then. To say that least, reading this book felt a bit nostalgic for me. I enjoyed how the plot encompassed different aspects of Irish mythology with the Druids and the Tuatha and it honestly made me so giddy as I got to see how those elements wove themselves into the story.

With that being said, as much as I love Irish mythology I would never want to be part of the world after reading this novel. While I'm still internally envious of how rich and beautiful the mythologies are, this book definitely views them in a more sinister lights. Honestly, the king and queen are unbelievably brutal, Bres is terrifying, and the leaders of Trinity are just so power-hungry it's scary. Building off of that, this book definitely has a violent streak and contains some graphic images that might not be safe for younger readers. There are some pretty graphic scenes of abuse and I have to admit, it was really disturbing.

Moving on to the characters, I was definitely indifferent at first, but they grew on me. Elizabeth has to endure some really horrific things after she started her master thesis. Her life gets completely thrown upside down when her mentor's nephew, Finn O'Connell shows up and tries to steal her work. To be completely honest, I was anti-Finn for a good portion of the book. He basically kidnaps Elizabeth and throws her into a strange new world where all the Irish stories she studies are true, disappears for a while and in that time span she gets severely beat up, and then shows up and proclaims his deep attraction for her. However, as the story progresses, he really becomes her protector and tries his hardest to shield for all the horrors, but things just keep getting in the way.

Elizabeth on the other hand was such a fascinating character to read about. Her progression from college student to half-Fae princess to prisoner to aisling is so incredibly interesting and her character development is astonishing. Granted, she had to literally face death a couple of times because the Council consists of a bunch of horrible mental faes, but the person she was at the end of the book is unrecognizable to who she was at the beginning. I will admit, she can get a bit hysterical at times, but in her situation, it was understandable.

This whole story is a just a series of unfortunate events for Elizabeth and that ending was so painful I was reading to march into the story and slap someone. I would probably die in the process since the Council doesn't look too highly on humans, but I wish I could. I'm definitely intrigued to see how the story progresses and I hope in the future books that certain people get what they deserve.

*Huge thanks to Entangled Publishing for providing a copy to review. All thoughts are 100% my own*